Updated with a video above showing the final setup, benchmarks and game tests.

This one is kinda special as it's happily running over PCI 3.0 x4 in an m.2 slot. Set up is problem free apart from needing to disable the intel HD graphics as some sort of conflict causes slow down and freezes, works fine once disabled.

*Updated to show that Hotplug is not capable, which may affect choice of GPU if going for 10xx series*

Original post

Well this is a little odd. I just received what was supposed to be a delivery of a v8 with a m key m.2 adapter and something unexpected showed up in the box. It's a new series v9.0b with dual hdmi inputs on it (I assume for x4 pci 3.0). Looking forward to giving it a test.

Has anyone come across a v9 before? I can't find any reference to it online.

System

AsRock Beebox-s NUC
i3-6100u
8gb RAM

Has a spare m key m.2 and a sata socket so can squeeze in a 2.5 ssd and still leave in place the wifi in the other m.2

I did buy the EXP GDC 9.0b from Cloud Hero's. Package came with the exp gdc, pcie Y-cable, Dell DA-2 PSU and a perspex enclosure. Cost was 668 CNY so translates to about $95USD for the lot, pretty good as banggood are charging about $150. I bought through Taobao. I live in Hong Kong so have a taobao account I buy directly through (I don't speak or read Chinese so was a pain of google translate to set up). Shipping to HK was like $10usd

I've put it in a metal enclosure I had at the moment. Looks quite good I think.

Wow! Nice see through protective cover. Looks right, two HDMI channels, each carrying 2 lanes. Am curious at what link speed you'll manage to get this going. PCIe 3.0 is rated at 8Gbps, with Thunderbolt using redriver ICs to boost the signal integrity. Blus PE4C 4.1 using a soldered cable, previously found to give most reliable signalling. Maybe EXP GDC's Cloud Hero has fixed his Gen2 signalling issues and now moved to Gen3?

Please do report your results, and costs. Direct x4 3.0 from the Southbridge, like a M2 slot provides, outperforms Thunderbolt3 since doesn't need to cross multiple bridges, each adding latency.

Curious, how stability is your x4 3.0 link with NVidia cards and what was the cost of the x4 3.0 capable EXP GDC Beast 9.0b adapter?? Positives there really favor M2 over TB3 eGPU implementations for those with a accessible or spare unwhitelisted M2 slot.

package came with the exp gdc, pcie Y-cable, Dell DA-2 PSU and a perspex enclosure. Cost was 668 CNY so translates to about $95USD for the lot, pretty good as banggood are charging about $150. I bought through Taobao.

package came with the exp gdc, pcie Y-cable, Dell DA-2 PSU and a perspex enclosure. Cost was 668 CNY so translates to about $95USD for the lot, pretty good as banggood are charging about $150. I bought through Taobao.

Westerners buying from taobao via say yoybuy.com get charged by weight. The Dell DA-2 is heavy. How did you manage to buy the package with Dell DA-2 included with reasonable shipping costs? Or did you pay high shipping cost?

I'm attached at the moment to an asrock beebox-s NUC with only i3-6100u and 8gb ram. Nice though as it has a spare m key m.2 and a sata socket so can squeeze in a 2.5 ssd and still leave in place the wifi in the other m.2

i did buy from cloudheros store but I live in Hong Kong so have a taobao account I buy directly through (I don't speak or read Chinese so was a pain of google translate to set up). Shipping to HK was like $10usd

I've put it in a metal enclosure I had at the moment. Looks quite good I think.

I've updated the opening post with the details during our discussion. If you'd like to take some pics of the rig, add a couple more benchmarks and any special instructions to get it all going then we'll have a an implementation writeup wrap. Nice NUC + eGPU for not much $$.

Did you want to check your eGPU hosting port's hotplug status using hwinfo64 as shown on this link and make a comment in your opening post? If it's hotplug disabled and GTX10xx cards are off limits, it could be a deal breaker for some looking to replicate your rig.

Sweet info. Any reason why this would or wouldn't work in OS X on a 9XX series card? Also linked Taobao site says 20G/s for this product. But you are mentioning speeds faster than TB3. I am confused a little about this or maybe mis-reading what the 20G/s (20Gbps?) refers to. Why aren't more people jumping on this build style? ... possibly because the link does not refer to v9.0b and only to Beast Series M.2 M key ?

I believe the link on taobao is still selling the same model (v9.0b) and I'm not sure why it's advertised as 20G/s. The CUDA-Z scores showed it's capable of more. TB3 has theoretical max bandwidth the same as this (PCI gen 3.0 x4) but as Nando mentioned in an earlier post it achieves bandwidth between 2200-2800Mibs, this manages about 3000.

The 10xx series nvidia issue though is a problem but AMD could be useful in this kind of setup as well as any 9xx nvidia cards.

Hey guys I don't think hotplug will be an issue. I just did the same setup as stulowe but with two changes. First I used the new AsRock Beebox- 7100u and second is that I used a GTX 1060 with the latest drivers. Like Stulowe said, you have to disable the built in intel graphics before you can use the HDMI from the 1060. Below will be the same programs used to test and benchmarks that Stulowe used.

Hey all, inspirational work. I'm trying this with the GTX 1080 (Gainward Phoenix) on the Asrock Deskmini (i7-6700t). As I posted on the guide, I can't get the powerbrick to turn on (green light rather than amber). Does anyone know how to activate the ATX PW switch, and which way I'm supposed to switch it? As far as I can see it's just a flat space on the PCB with two tiny holes above it, so I'm not sure how to toggle it.

Hello all. Inspirational work indeed. I tried such setup with Intel NUC6i3 and GTX 970 and it works perfectly. This was expected as Asrock Beebox 6100 and NUC6i3 is basically the same HW configuration. The only difference is there's no need to disable iGPU, no such switch in BIOS anyway, as it disables itself and video switches to graphics card.

I used that setup for one week until I pushed HDMI connectors into Beast while my NUC was turned on. Holy mother! GTX 970 burned, NUC burned, luckily Beast didn't even notice. GTX is dead completely and PCIe part of NUC's M.2 port died. Thanks God these devices were still covered under warranty. Anyway be carful with your toys.

I'm looking for a cheap solution for my Spectre x360. I do have TB3 but I don't wanna pay for a Razer core or even Aktito Node (which isn't even available in Germany). I came across this post and I'm excited. But using the M.2 slot for egpu leaves the problem with the ssd. But I just came across a Thunderbolt 3 to dual HDMI adapter on ebay, could this possibly work with the EXP GDC 9.0? Just plug in 2 HDMI cables between adapter and EXP? Thanks for your replies

Thank you for your response. Yes I can get to the M.2 wifi slot. Is this always x1? So 8Gb/s? Where do you find out such things, also like which slots share which lanes and whether TB3 has x4 or x2 lanes? Seems like I didn't find the right keywords for google yet.

Another idea was to plug in the egpu in the pciex4 m.2 and use an external sata ssd on one of the usb 3.1 gen2 slots. Any possible issues with that? (other than nvme ssd doesnt work with sata interface)

Hey guys I don't think hotplug will be an issue. I just did the same setup as stulowe but with two changes. First I used the new AsRock Beebox- 7100u and second is that I used a GTX 1060 with the latest drivers. Like Stulowe said, you have to disable the built in intel graphics before you can use the HDMI from the 1060. Below will be the same programs used to test and benchmarks that Stulowe used.

How the heck did you manage to install latest drivers (in your case 381.65) without hot plug enabled?

Hey Maxwell sorry for the late response. What I meant by my post before was that the drivers at the time no longer brought up the hotplug errors( error 43). My system is a windows 10 professional. I have upgraded my gpu to a 1070 founders edition since then and everything has been smooth.

Originally when i was doing the same setup as Stu , around early April, the drivers at the time did give me the errors so after some searching i found that every 3rd nvidia driver update managed to work without the error. Since the update in April till now i haven't ran into error 43 so I assumed that Nvidia patched it up.

I jumped on the gdc 9.0b because of this thread. But I've had nothing but trouble getting it to work. The first day I spent hours just trying to get a detection. Then I did and I had a code 12 which magically fixed itself. I managed to get 2 gaming sessions out of the system before the error code 43 kicked my ass and I'm back trying to work out what I did to anger the gods ever since. Every hour I now spend trying to get this thing working now convinces me more that I should have just bought an akito node.

i wonder what speeds do you get if you plug in only one hdmi? i think one HDMI carry only x1 lanes, and other hdmi adds other x3 lanes.
otherwise you would be able to have x2 on simple exp gdc 8.4 models, but you only get x1, now i understand that PCH is also a limitation, but maybe some soldering to the MoBO could bring X2 to us 8.4 users

Hey guys sorry for the long wait. So I've been able to get a couple of different GPU's working with this setup.

RX 580
GTX 1060
GTX 1070
*Also remember that the power supply that you get with the 9.0b only supports up to 220W. Any card that requires more might run into some issues running. I am currently testing out a GTX 1080. I will display the results of these cards later on.

With the most recent updates to windows and to the display drivers I've also ran into some issues. The following is my method of getting the setup working.

Before connecting m.2:

1. Make sure that the right HDMI cable is plugged in the left port of the EXP GDC beast. It turns out that there is a main HDMI cable and a secondary so make sure you have the right one plugged into the left and right.
2. When you first setup your computer make sure that all the drivers are up to date and the most recent updates for windows 10 is installed.
3. Connect the EXP GDC M.2 to your M.2 port

After Connecting M.2:
1. Keep either the DP cable or HDMI cable that is connected to your monitor connected to your pc's corresponding port.
2. Turn on PC
3. Check your Device manager to see if your PC detects the graphics card.
4. If your device is not detected try turning off the PC and unplug the power from your PC. Then switch the HDMI cables on the EXP GDC (Switch the cable plugged into the left port for the right port and vice versa)
5. If your device is detected then you can begin installing the display software(either the latest AMD or Nvidia drivers)
6. If you run into and issue with the installation where the drivers refuse to install then turn off your built in display driver. In my case i needed to turn off my Intel HD 620 in the device manager (right click on it then disable the device).
7. Once your drivers are installed correctly turn off the computer and then switch the display cable(HDMI or DP) from your PC to the GPU's corresponding port.

8. Game or whatever like a boss.

*If you are not gaming then you can keep the display cable plugging into your PC and run things in parallel